So long as Lily's recklessness had not done any harm, it was easy to dismiss her--so very far had she receded into the dull, patiently-to-be-endured, background of life! The Eleanor of the next few weeks, who seemed just a little more melancholy and silent than usual, a little more devoted to old Bingo, did not attract his attention in any way. But when Edith came in on the following Sunday, he had his wife sufficiently on his mind to say, in a quick aside: "Edith, don't give me away on being sort of upset last Sunday night, will you?" (As he spoke, he remembered that swift kiss. "Nice little Skeezics!" he thought.) But he finished his sentence with perfect matter-of-factness: "it was just a--a little personal worry. I don't want Eleanor bothered, you understand?" "Of course," said Edith, gravely And so it was that in another month or two, with reliance upon Edith's discretion, and satisfaction in a recovering Jacky, the track of the tornado in Maurice's mind was quite covered up with the old, ugly, commonplace of furtive security. In the security Maurice was conscious, in a kindly way, that poor old Eleanor looked pretty seedy; so he brought her some flowers once in a while; not as often as he would have liked to, for, though he had more money now, eight weeks of a private room in a hospital "kind o' makes a dent in your income," Maurice told himself; "but I don't begrudge it," he thought; "I'm glad the kid got well." So, after that night of terror and turmoil,--when Eleanor had fainted--Maurice's life in his own house settled again into the old tranquil forlornness, enlivened only by those Sunday-afternoon visits from Edith.